Pimping and Profitability

Testing the Economics of Trafficking in Street Sex Markets in Atlantic City, New Jersey

Bibliographic Data

ID2363387
AuthorsAnthony Allen Marcus (0000-0001-7532-5078, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, corresponding author), Anthony Marcus (John Jay College, New York, NY, USA), Jo Sanson (independent scholar), Amber Horning (0000-0002-1963-4295, William Paterson University, NJ, USA), Efram Thompson (John Jay College, New York, NY, USA), Ric Curtis (John Jay College, New York, NY, USA)
Year2016
Volume59
Issue1
Pages46-65
Publication date2016-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0731-1214 • E-ISSN: 1533-8673
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0731121416628552
OpenAlexW2305210052
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited57

Human trafficking has been identified as the second or third most profitable illicit business on the planet. Underlying these claims and billions of dollars in policy funding since the 1990s is an economics of human trafficking built heavily on two assumptions. The first is that nonconsensual labor is more profitable than consensual labor with minors being particularly profitable due to their ubiquity and inability to effectively consent. The second is that, unlike illicit narcotic and weapons sales, human trafficking involves a uniquely renewable and nearly limitless source of profit. This article uses empirical data collected from street sex markets in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 2010-2012 to test some of the assumptions of the economics of human trafficking and puts particular focus on U.S.-based domestic minor sex trafficking by exploring market practices and understandings of young sex workers and pimps/third parties who have opportunities to benefit from the sexual labor of minors. Consistent with broader literature by economic historians and labor process scholars, findings do not support the assumptions of trafficking economics, suggesting the need for trafficking economists and policymakers to give more consideration to local political economies of sex in the design of antitrafficking policy

Criminology · Economics · Human trafficking · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Politics · Profitability index · Sex trafficking · Sociology · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Sex work and related issues · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Finance

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